Our First Home

If you’ve read my introduction to Designing Scarlett, you’ve read about my experience years ago while living in Toronto where we bought our first home (first marriage). A very tiny semi-detached house, it was located in East York, a former borough of Metropolitan Toronto. It was along the subway line, so it was a relatively short and easy commute to my job in downtown Toronto. And my husband drove our car to work. Its location was perfect!

I wasn’t able to locate my own pics of this house, so I Googled the address to see if I could find real estate pics online of it. And I got lucky! 

As tiny as it was, this was our first owned home as a newly married couple, and our opportunity to get in on the real estate market while houses were still affordable.  Tired of paying rent to landlords where we couldn’t know which corner we would find something scurrying as can sometimes happen with rentals, we were so beyond ready to make a move! We had had our share of not-so-fun rental experiences.

Blood, Sweat And Peanut Butter For Our First Home

We put our noses to the grindstone and took any extra paying work hours we could get in our attempt to save for a down payment.  Our parents weren’t in a position financially to help us out, so this was 100% on us. I remember the two of us standing at the kitchen counter in the tiny house we were renting, eating peanut butter on soda crackers for dinner in our determination to get the rather hefty down payment together.  We certainly made all of the sacrifices needed to see it done in a short time. A little over 3 months to be exact, and we did it!

Once we had our down payment together, the search began! We contacted a few real estate agents early on in our search but they seemed to not hear us when we told them what we knew we could afford, and couldn’t possibly!  Feeling a little discouraged, I picked up the phone one last time to connect with an agent we had seen a listing from in Saturday’s newspaper.  And with that one phonecall, everything changed.

Enter Helen

A lady by the name of Helen, answered the phone.  Her demeanor and Maritime accent instantly told me that this encounter was meant to be.  We made appts with her for a few showings that week and came upon what would be our first home.  It was affordable, checked all the boxes in what we were looking for in a starter home for a childless couple, and still close to all of the activity in downtown TO. And it was in a relatively safe neighbourhood then, and as close as could be expected for easy commuting to our jobs etc.  SOLD!!!

The lot of our little house – I wasn’t lying in the intro – was 16 ft wide!  The house itself was only 13 ft wide if you can believe that.  We joked that you could step through the front door of the sunporch, roll a bowling ball, and watch it roll straight out the back door into our backyard.  Now that is tiny!

From the sunporch, led a very narrow hallway to the tiny living room and kitchen. But first, to the right of the hallway – a very tiny dining room. And to the left of that, a narrow staircase to the 2nd level where 2 very tiny bedrooms and a bathroom sat. Back down the stairs and to the right was the living room, also acting as a hallway leading you through the kitchen. A 2nd bathroom with bathtub sat behind the kitchen which was really strange, as it was almost a part of the back porch. Followed by a very small deck in the very tiny backyard. It was a weird little house. But we were in!!!

Where It All Began Thanks To Our First Home

Upon moving in, we began removing wallpaper, scraping and painting.  We added pretty wallpaper patterns to the walls of both bedrooms and painted the doors and trims.  We repainted the sunporch, hallway, dining room, kitchen and bathrooms. 

In the midst of all of that fun and excitement tho, we found out we were expecting a baby!

With that, we knew we wouldn’t be there for much longer and would need to move a little further into the burbs to have what we were after in a family home. And we had only been there for 6 months. But it didn’t take long to realize that the narrow stairs, and a growing belly to see over safely when climbing them, couldn’t work.

Again, we called Helen! We told her of our plans, and asked her to come by to do an evaluation and draw up a listing for us.

Helen came in that evening, had coffee with us where we chatted and caught up a bit on her family life, ours and all things Maritime related. “So, let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!” she said enthusiastically. 

Wait For It…

She walked through our tiny house, commenting excitedly on the many cosmetic improvements we had made with only paint, paper and styling.  When she got to the dining room, she said “So hon (everyone was “hon” to Helen) – right now, if we list, we can ask x amount of dollars, but if you put wallpaper up in this room, I can get you an extra $10,000.”  Ummm…really?? So putting this all into perspective, when you’re talking an extra $10,000 on a 5 or $800,000 home, an extra $10,000 is admittedly, peanuts. But figure it into the grand scheme of things on a $70,000 home which it was then – that was crazy! In all honesty, I wasn’t sure what to make of her statement, but we trusted her!

The following day, I was at St. Clair Paint and Paper buying wallpaper and a coordinating border from a discount bin for a whopping total of $32.  Once I painted the wood trim, I had the room papered 2 days later. I called Helen back and told her we were ready.

She came by, and drew up the listing. And she listed the house with the additional $10,000 on the asking price she had suggested. The next day, the house was sold and at full asking price. Wootwoot!

Like, wha??? 

With a 2 month closing/move date and with the fortunate little win from the sale of our tiny first home, we were now ready to look for our real home! 

Moving Up From Our First Home

Helen took us out to the beautiful suburb of Ajax. A young neighborhood brimming with fairly new builds, and we found the perfect home for us! It was exactly the 3 bedroom, fully detached house with attached garage, finished basement with a full sized brick fireplace and huge, beautifully landscaped fenced in backyard we were so wanting to raise our young family in.

It was there that we would bring our newborn home to from the delivery of him in the little Ajax/Pickering hospital.  We also celebrated his 1st birthday in that house so it and the community of Ajax has always had a really special place in my heart.  I remember wallpapering our hallway the night before going into labour while listening to Crowded House.  I still get emotional when I hear any song from that album – even 38 years later. They were all such huge and meaningful moments in our lives!

It didn’t take long tho, before deciding that we had had enough of the traffic jams in the long commutes to work on the 401. And that’s not to mention that I was so nervous to have anyone care for our son while I returned to work following a really frightening experience! It was after being stuck in one of those traffic jams where my husband, then, walked through the door at the end of the day in defeat “Call Helen!” He was getting zero argument from me!

Oh Helen…

Call Helen I did, and quickly, I might add, before he could change his mind again.  Helen met with us that evening, listed our house the next day with an open house slated for the weekend.

Following multiple offers received that same day of the open house, we accepted the highest bid with a closing date of 30 days.

“Wth just happened??!”

Again, we found ourselves standing in the kitchen, where all difficult decisions seemed to be getting made those days, scratching our heads and wondering how we were going to manage the move on such short notice and half way across the country at that.

And suddenly, there we were, Maritime bound. Setting out to raise our son where his grandparents could watch him grow and have a real presence in his life.  It was as much for our parents, and our son, as it was for us.  We both so desperately just wanted to be ‘home’ but also, for our son to know his family and where they would truly learn him, and for us to be with our aging parents. 

The Reconnection

Over the years that followed, and with many life-altering changes happening in between and still in the Maritimes, I eventually set out to find Helen. 

Technology was growing in leaps and bounds by this time.  Social media had become the new and growing trend, and where I managed to locate a young man, whose name was, too coincidentally, the same as Helen’s son’s name. I asked him if he could by chance, be related.  And he was – her son! 

Helen and I so happily reconnected and are still in touch to this day.  So often, I have come to realize that Helen was our guardian angel back then – having taken 2 young Maritimers under her wing and truly caring about us in helping us to attain our goals while staying within our means.  Some would not have cared if we had drowned in debt once the sale was made.  But she was different. Helen cared. And I was so happy to have found her again.

I always had a love-hate relationship with Toronto when we were there.  Not because it was Toronto, but because I was missing my home in eastern Canada.  The love-hate relationship would have existed with no matter where I was then, other than in the maritimes. Longing for our families, a simpler life, the slower pace and being where everybody knows your name had left us both so wanting to go back to grassroots in raising our son in the same. 

The Beginning Of It All – Our First Home

When I look back on all of it now, that time in my life was the beginning of the rest of it in so many ways. They were my days of becoming an adult, a young wife, and a mom for the first time. But also the first days of family life, and of a wonderful friendship with Helen. And where I got my first real taste of the satisfaction of reaping the fruits of creativity and hard hands-on work. 

It was there that I was really first bitten by the bug of realizing the beauty and gratification in refurbishing, and refinishing. And thanks to Helen, it was my first big lesson in the power of just a little paint and paper, even on a shoestring budget! 

It didn’t need to be grand, nor did it need to be brand new, and it most definitely didn’t need to cost a fortune.  It just needed to be a reflection of us and provide us with a feel-good place to call ‘home’. And it was ours. We were in!!

Where All Roads Lead To

I’m forever grateful for that time in my life.  Many things have changed since and I will admit, it sometimes feels like a whole lifetime ago.

I will never forget the excitement of buying our very first home and of anticipating the birth of our first born. And I will never forget the love that I had for Toronto, as much as I longed to be in the Maritimes again.

And Helen – I will never forget Helen – for her kindness, care and being the good human that she was and still is.  How blessed we were to have crossed paths! We are all connected, I believe. And that we all cross paths for a reason. She crossed my path for a reason.

And I will forever remember that time in my life fondly, when I realized that with a little creativity, imagination and hard work, amazing things were possible! 

So as a footnote to my little story – the one where I try to express where my love for refurbishing, renovating and putting heart and soul into our initial investment originated from? Our first little home multiplied in value by a little over 1000% since we first bought it according to the last listing I could find of it online, dated 2017.

At a whopping $747,000.

And it’s still only 13 ft wide!

Having all taught me this – to see the possibilities, tap into your creativity, roll up your sleeves, and work hard at it. Nothing comes for free, and you will reap what you sew!

And it’s a can of paint! If you make a mistake, it’s nothing that another can of paint can’t fix.

Just do it! It’s just a can of paint!!

And quite possibly, a roll of wallpaper!